Library Gazette

With a lump in my throat, I must report that Renate has retired from the University. Her last day at work was Friday. She has been planning this for a while, but blood-swore us to absolute secrecy until she was gone. She specifically would not allow any kind of party or celebration of her many years of service. She was hired in September 1966 as a part-time library assistant in the cataloging department. Over the years, she was both part-time and full-time and even took a 6 year break from 1975 to 1981. Through it all, she epitomized the mission of the Z Smith Reynolds Library: to help our faculty and students succeed.

I only knew her for five years, but she made a definite impression on me as a new Director. She took my modest idea of keeping the library open 24 hours during exam week and turned it into the Wake the Library extravaganza that we now know and love. It was her idea to go out and raise money to serve food to the students and she did it with style. She was also the first chair of the Marketing Committee to invent the Library Lecture Series. She called in favors from a number of faculty to come and speak in the library and set the precedent for our current, highly successful events. These are only two of her many, many contributions to ZSR. She was the face of the Library to several generations of Wake Forest faculty, staff and students. I invite others to give their remembrances and tributes to the incomparable Renate!

A group of us went to the UNCG Library and Information Studies Alumni Day Luncheon today to honor Wanda Brown, who was given the Kovacs Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement. While there, we learned that Lauren Pressley, Giz Womack and Elizabeth Novicki were also being honored for their induction into the library science honorary society, Beta Phi Mu. Those present at the luncheon included Chris Burris, Heather Gillette, Patty Strickland, Lauren Pressley, Elizabeth Novicki, Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin (FCPL Director and Wanda’s guest) and Wanda’s friend Linda Carr. The guest speaker, Dr. Randy Testa, was unexpectedly interesting but also unexpectedly looooong. Congratulations Wanda and all Beta Phi Mu inductees!

For the third year in a row, I was invited to the Presidents’ Leadership Conference, jointly sponsored by the President of the University and the Student Government President. Student leaders invite administrators whom they wish to engage in discussion about campus issues. The format is a weekend retreat, held this year at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. The setting is very beautiful and conducive to openness and creativity.

On Friday night, the students prepared dinner in the condo units (pringles, spaghetti, chips ahoy cookies) and then brainstormed issues on campus that students were concerned about. On Saturday morning, we had a series of presentations: academic update by the Provost, possibilities for Deacon Village, diversity check, and future of technology for WFU students. I gained lots of good insights from the latter and felt gratified that students feel the library is a leader on campus for things like collaborative technology, Google Docs, blogs, Smart Boards, training, etc. Students showed receptivity to the idea of e-books (especially for textbooks) and confessed that if a journal isn’t electronic, it isn’t worth having. One student lamented there weren’t enough e-journals linked from the MLA database.

At lunch, President Hatch shared his insights on leadership in general, and then how he applied them to Wake Forest. We had free time Saturday afternoon so my suitemate Nancy Crouch and I took a walk around the resort and then I watched a lousy football game (no comment). Saturday night we were back at it, choosing an issue from Friday night and then crafting a solution.

On Sunday morning, each group presented their identified problem and proposed solution. They were amazingly creative!

1) Bike paths both on and off campus

2) Group lunches between students and university leaders

3) Fostering class identity and unity (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year) to build community

4) Pro Humanitate community service honor roll

5) Friday/Saturday night social programming as an alternative to “partying” (my group)

I was very glad to be a part of the group and got to know a number of student leaders that I had not yet met. One guy came up to me at the end and thanked me for all the changes in the library and how much he enjoyed them. That was worth the weekend, right there.

Lynn

From the Director:

Many of you know by now that I have a deep and abiding love and respect for all things related to the good Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the last three years, I have tried to encourage meaningful programming at ZSR to honor his legacy and help fulfill his dream. The first year we had Micah Andrews read the famous “I Have a Dream” speech in our beautiful atrium.

The next year, Micah wrote his own call-to-action speech entitled, “What’s Going On?”

This year, ZSR sponsored the showing of the film “I Am Not My Brother’s Keeper”produced by Wake Forest faculty member Mary Dalton, describing the lunch counter sit-in by Winston Salem State and Wake Forest students in 1960.

The film tied in to the joint WSSU-WFU celebration of the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, January 21, which had many ZSR ties as well. Microtext and ITC student Benny Cooper, who also participated in the South Course last summer, won the student prize for the annual Building the Dream award. Dr. Angela Hattery, faculty member and creator of the South Course trip, won the faculty “Building the Dream” award. Attending the luncheon at WSSU to celebrate the awards were Lynn Sutton, Wanda Brown, Chris Burris and Doris Jones. Later that night Lynn, Chris and Mary Beth Lock attended the MLK program featuring an inspirational speech by LeVar Burton (of Roots, Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame) and an outstanding spoken word performance by WFU graduate Tyrell Dozier and his little brother. Jessica Armstrong (Circulation student and daughter of our own Prentice) sang in the gospel choir. Craig Fansler did his usual magic with exhibits, producing one on Dr. King and one on LeVar Burton:

Next year we will continue to do our part to raise awareness until the whole campus is truly involved and takes ownership in the MLK holiday that affects us all. Or as Dr. King said,

In this last column under the old GAZ format, I am still mindful of salary issues, given President Hatch’s email to staff last week regarding salary pools. As everyone on the ZSR staff should know by now, I place a very high priority on achieving fair and equitable salaries for all classifications of library staff. Perhaps because I was raised in a union town with relatively high wages and benefits and worked in a public institution where individual salaries were widely known, it was surprising to me to find that wages at ZSR were not as comparatively fair as the one that I negotiated for myself upon taking the job as Director.

Soon after, I enlisted Debbie’s help to conduct a complete and thorough study of ZSR salaries, benchmarked with peers, for all classifications of staff. Human Resources was fully supportive of this process and assisted by re-writing 52 job descriptions and reclassifying all non-exempt personnel. The ZSR staff was supportive of creating an equity pool out of last year’s 3 percent salary guideline in order to bring each individual up to a level playing field. We developed a 3 year plan to raise non-exempt salaries to the appropriate level and a similar 5 year plan for exempt staff. Last year, ZSR was fortunate to receive an extra salary allocation to fund the first year of these multi-year plans. That brings us to where we are today.

As long ago as the Plan for the Class of 2000, Wake Forest set a goal to raise faculty salaries to the median of faculty in peer (cross-admit) institutions. Up until this point, this goal has not been met and in fact, Wake Forest faculty wages have fallen against those of peers. It is this goal that President Hatch has made his highest priority, in the belief that Wake Forest must attract and retain world-class faculty in order to achieve world-class quality.

The President’s message did not leave staff out. It is particularly gratifying to see the minimum wage raised for the entire campus. This is part of a “living wage” movement of universities across the nation. Further, the University will make adjustments for the members of the hourly staff based on length of service, thus recognizing their dedication to Wake Forest. By the end of this process, more than 500 non-exempt staff will receive increases in their hourly compensation ranging from 4 percent to 13 percent. The average increase for the non-exempt staff in this pool will be more than 5 percent. This is all welcome news and may mean that the second and third year levels in the three year non-exempt plan will be reached. There was no mention of exempt staff in the message and thus it appears that no additional pool has been set aside for this group of employees this year. I would hope that next year’s campus priorities would address equity for exempt staff. In the meantime, I will do all that I can to use any new or existing resources to address the exempt shortfall.

As I said in my note last week, just as Dr. Hatch has publicly said that enhancing faculty salaries is his highest priority, you may be sure that enhancing library staff salaries is my highest priority and will remain so until we reach equity.